The present invention relates to the home or business office automation industries and, more particularly, to an audio, video or multimedia control system for home or business offices and related methods.
In the past, much of home or office automation has been only on a theoretical basis. The cost, communication hardware and software requirements, and practicalities of such home automation have been unrealistic. Recently, however, various communication requirements have begun to be addressed and the cost of communicating within a network of devices has begun to decline in many homes and offices. Also, homes and offices have been initially wired in anticipation of home and office automation concepts. Some home automation systems, such as seen in U.S. Pat. No. 5,621,662 by Humphries et al. titled xe2x80x9cHome Automation System,xe2x80x9d generate messages within a network which include an address for indicating the destination of the message and a segment indicating the type of message. Other home automation systems, such as seen in U.S. Pat. No. 5,805,073 by Nagano et al. title xe2x80x9cApparatus For Connecting Electric Appliances,xe2x80x9d connect electric appliances by transmitting control signals using a multiple part code having a command field and a device field. Still other systems, such as seen in U.S. Pat. No. 5,629,687 by Sutton et al. titled xe2x80x9cUniversal Interface For Remotely Monitored Security Systems,xe2x80x9d use a universal interface for remotely monitoring components within a network and use look up tables for translating commands entered by a user on a keypad. Yet other systems have been developed, such as seen in U.S. Pat. No. 5,086,385 by Launey et al. titled xe2x80x9cExpandable Home Automation System,xe2x80x9d which requires a complex hardware network which uses two separate sets of switches to control a plurality of devices or appliances.
Little development effort continues to be exerted on an application or other equivalent layer of a home or office automation system, and especially on user interface to the home or office automation system such as through a keypad using the application or other equivalent layer. This lack of focus and understanding of the application or other equivalent layer makes it difficult to readily add-on additional or new audio, video, multimedia or other devices within a network without major software reprogramming tasks being required or major hardware rewiring or reconfiguration of a network being required as needed for these other systems.
With the foregoing in mind, the present invention advantageously provides an audio, video, or multimedia keypad controller and associated methods which is flexible so that additional audio, video or multimedia devices can readily be added to an audio, video or multimedia device communications network and so that the audio, video or multimedia keypad controller can readily handle both single and multiple zoned audio, video or multimedia device communication networks. The present invention also advantageously provides an audio, video or multimedia keypad controller which can readily handle tiered audio, video or multimedia device add-ons to an audio, video or multimedia device communications network system without major software reprogramming or major hardware rewiring or reconfiguration. The present invention further advantageously provides an audio, video or multimedia keypad controller and method of communicating within a network which uses a multi-dimensional vector table or analysis to more accurately and quickly locate and issue a command to an audio, video or multimedia related or other device within the network.
More particularly, the present invention provides an audio, video or multimedia control system which preferably has at least one keypad responsive to a user and an audio, video or multimedia keypad controller responsive to the at least one keypad. The audio, video or multimedia keypad controller preferably has multiple vector command path operating means for operating the controller with a multiple vector command path protocol in an application or other equivalent layer of an audio, video or multimedia device communications network. The audio, video or multimedia control system preferably also has a plurality of audio, video or multimedia communication channels connected to the at least one audio, video or multimedia keypad controller and a plurality of audio, video or multimedia devices each connected to at least one of the plurality of audio, video or multimedia communication channels and positioned within a plurality of rooms within a home or business so as to define the audio, video or multimedia device communications network.
The present invention also advantageously includes a method of communicating commands to a plurality of audio, video or multimedia devices positioned in a network having a keypad and a keypad controller positioned in communication with the keypad. The method preferably includes generating a communication code from the keypad responsive to a user interfacing with the keypad and operating the keypad controller in an application or other equivalent layer of the network with a multiple vector command path protocol responsive to the communication code from the keypad.